First impressions on RFC RAND

[Phallus]

I'm playing one game as India (after a false start which I quit because Carthage spawned on top of me ) and enjoying it very much. The only potently noticeable thing so far is that Egypt goes religion happy and tends to found Judaism, Confucianism and Daoism. I can just about accept Judaism (though if I knew how I'd adjust the spread modifiers), but the others are painful. They even founded Christianity in the first game.

(The first time this happened China wasn't there, so it made some small sense - though really I wish C+D could be taken out altogether if China doesn't spawn)

After getting so used to RFC's accurate religious spread, I'm finding this hard to fathom. In RFC I'd just enter the worldbuilder and re-appropriate any lost religions, but now I don't want to reveal the map!

 

[onedreamer]

Russia is spawning too close to China--even in a huge map, I flipped 2 cities from the Chinese, and the Mongolians haven't even spawned yet. That's why we need marshes!

I doubt marshes would help anything with this "issue", the spawn areas for the new Euro civs are huge, and besides this would be an issue only depending on which map type you play. If you play medium likeliness (let's call it medium random) then it's acceptable that Russia spawns near China sometimes. Maybe less acceptable that Carthage ALWAYS spawn as a neighbor of India. If you play high random then the Dutch can be born in America. If you play a large map where not all civs are present, and China is missing, you can't really complain if another 3000 BC civ founds the chinese religions... I think if you guys want almost the same game as the base RFC, should play huge map with low random (high earth likeliness) and temperate climate.
Real issues IMHO are resources spawning on mountains or on wrong terrain types; few food for starting areas of ancient civs, especially those connected with desert; rivers that cross deserts without a single flood plain, food resources that can't be improved because under a jungle, and more stuff like this.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

I started as Greece, standard map(crappy computer), random earth likeliness(I think that it's low). India started north of me, Egypt and Ethiopia are far east. Rome is somewhere, maybe behind Egypt(they declared war on me for some reason). I don't know where other nations are, at least Spain, Russia and Mali have spawned somewhere. Korinthos is the greatest city in the world, has about 5 wonders and a nice stack of phalanxes. Athenai is my capital, not as good as Korinthos but still fairly good. Sparte is my third city, it's the holy city of Christianity(great prophet) and Islam(great prophet + running a deficit economy to get it in time).

Veeeery nice.

 

[Ambassador]

Hi all,

my first impression:

I played as Persian Empire until about 600 AD. (Screenshot below)

The map is very good, interesting landscape, impassable mountain ranges, muc space to expand.
Yet the growth of most cities is very slow especially for cities in southern hemisphere (like Egypt, Persia, Arabia etc.). By 550 I managed to have cities as big as 4 points, then the plague came, they went back to 2 points. The map is barely settled.

more impressions later on ...

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Tried several Russian starts. Very interesting that the large space between Russia and the eastern civs are gone. Contacted Japan almost immediately because they are not on an island and have chariots running wild (Tokugawa is very accomodating in trading for civs/opening borders, especially for ones that haven't had wonders built yet like code of laws). In all games Moscow had 3-4 cows and lots of trees. One game I flipped some Chinese cities and warred with a dominant China for 2 centuries, and I gave up because the Mongols showed up and wanted 2 of them back. The other game I was doing well but suddenly 3 stacks of barb horsemen/axemen showed up (one in the middle of my empire which still had a hole in it due to numerous mountains) and captured 2 of my outposts despite my UP. Third time flipped a Persian (!) city (in low earthlikehood) and collapsed them, but then my science rate was at a standstill (in normal civ I would have gone on and won).
No seaports in all 3 games which is sad. And since Asia was so small, getting any inland city >20 tiles away is almost impossible without founding on future Mongolian turf.

 

[The Q-Meister]

My China game has the same experience; Russia was right next to me and I was a small China with only 4 cities...There is no equivalent to the vast streches of Siberia that I can see.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

I started as Greece, standard map(crappy computer), random earth likeliness(I think that it's low). India started north of me, Egypt and Ethiopia are far east. Rome is somewhere, maybe behind Egypt(they declared war on me for some reason). I don't know where other nations are, at least Spain, Russia and Mali have spawned somewhere. Korinthos is the greatest city in the world, has about 5 wonders and a nice stack of phalanxes. Athenai is my capital, not as good as Korinthos but still fairly good. Sparte is my third city, it's the holy city of Christianity(great prophet) and Islam(great prophet + running a deficit economy to get it in time).

Veeeery nice.

Plague + Korinthos declares independence + Ottomans spawn next to me = I switch to Ottomans + Sparte flips to me + Greece collapses + I conquer those independent cities



Rome is the biggest nations in the world, India is big also. Ethiopia and Mali have both about 7 cities but a small landmass. I have 6 cities, I think, but still much more landmass than Ethiopia or Mali. Egypt has collapsed, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Russia try to cope against Rome, Japan spawned on an archipelago, China and Inca are on a small continent(Inca has only two cities, but at least they're not fighting against Europeans).

 

[Ambassador]

continued:

After spawning, I almost immediately conquered the Egyptians which had only two tiny cities and no military. Fought China afterwards to get some workers. The game went well except VERY slow growth and VERY low settler building (only managed to build one more settler till 450 AD). The problem is there are almost no food resources!! With tiny cities and crappy production my military as well was tiny (except for the one I got at the start).

 

[onedreamer]

the most interesting aspect is of course replayability. You can roll a start with a civ and win a UHV or other victory fairly easy, and then retry and be screwed, or anyways, it will still be a strategically very different game. So far, except the food resource placement, I love it !

 

[The Q-Meister]

Probably related to the fact that there's no stone or marble around civ spawn sites!! (E.g. pyramids built in 830 AD when Russia spawned)

Yup, much easier to beat the AI to wonders now. Even with just 2 very mediocre Persian cities (no iron/copper/horse) in the vicinity and only stone I was able to build Pyramids, Stonehenge, Oracle, Hanging Gardens.

 

[Phallus]

In my India game I took control of England, and now I'm terrorising the American civs. Religion took a long time to reach Europe (except France who were too far to send it to us anyway) and so far I'm the only one in the new world. Very good altogether.

 

[Zdarg]

Probably related to the fact that there's no stone or marble around civ spawn sites!!

Well, as I've seen (20-30 starts), Babelonia has about 30% chances to have a stone and about 5% chance to have a marble. Meanwhile, it has 95% chances for each of gold and ivory.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I suppose this is what everyone is talking about with regards to resource placement; stone, dye and ivory all in the middle of the desert and out of reach from Babylon itself. Only 1 food plain in Babylon's radius, the rest mostly desert and hills. If the stone had been closer and more food plains it would have been a decent start.

 

[onedreamer]

well, I see at least 2 flood plains (one is on the hill).

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Plague + Korinthos declares independence + Ottomans spawn next to me = I switch to Ottomans + Sparte flips to me + Greece collapses + I conquer those independent cities



Rome is the biggest nations in the world, India is big also. Ethiopia and Mali have both about 7 cities but a small landmass. I have 6 cities, I think, but still much more landmass than Ethiopia or Mali. Egypt has collapsed, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Russia try to cope against Rome, Japan spawned on an archipelago, China and Inca are on a small continent(Inca has only two cities, but at least they're not fighting against Europeans).

Things got boring, so I decided to start a world war:

Ottomans(me)
Spain
Portugal
Mali
Rome*
Ethiopia*

vs

India
Netherlands
Inca
Russia

* = joined because of an Apostolic Palace resolution

I razed two cities, Calcutta and Varanasi, and continued my conquest. Then, game decided to crash(or at least Vista closed BTS and informed me about an error). D'oh. Hopefully I don't lose many turns thanks to autosave.

 

[The Q-Meister]

Continued that Babylon game from above and things going OK, about to discover Civil Service at 1290AD but the big news is that none of the usual suspects (Persia, Arabia, Turkey) have flipped any of my cities!! Big surprise and relief as anyone who's played Babylon in regular RAF will know.

I had to spread out further than I guess I should have being historically tiny Babylon, for a while I was the largest civ in the game with just 4 moderately spacef out cities. I didn't see the point in building a coastal city next to Babil and taking the clams or on a desert coastal tile so I build them further away. This made me Shaky and even Unstable for awhile so I halted expansion and just build infrastructure. No one really close to me until Arabia came and build 2 desert cities to the east of me. Saladin is actually more agreeable to Open Borders and sends missionaries...things I wish he would do more of in the regular RAF game

After calendar and connecting my plantation resources I was back to Shaky and with Currency it's Stable/Shaky. About to expand for the first time in maybe 2000 years to get a good city with 2 gold and horse. Still a very challenging game as Babylon even without the civs flipping your cities but it's also a definite change not having that being the main focus of the game.

Cities in general are much smaller than in regular RAF, they grow more slowly, not as much obvious powerhouse uber-cities a la Rome, Shush, Frankfurt, Chicago... With being able to confirm that Turkey was not next to me I suppose I'm free to expand at will now, as much as my expansion will allow.

 

[The Q-Meister]

Things got boring, so I decided to start a world war:

Ottomans(me)
Spain
Portugal
Mali
Rome*
Ethiopia*

vs

India
Netherlands
Inca
Russia

My money's on Team A.

Team B consists of

1. Jungle Civ
2. Tiny Civ
3. Backwards Civ
4. Shadow of its former self (much smaller territory than regular RAF) civ

good luck!

 

[thadian]

Spain and Mali shouldn't be much help but you could probably do it by yourself. the AI is very peaceful.

I got frustrated when my second city, built 3 spaces from my capital of bibilu flipped to MONGOL so i declared war with everyone and started an ICS (infinite city sprawl for those who didnt play civ3). Meanwhile, i have 0 military of any kind, building only a city, literally every closest space i can - and the AI doesn't stop me until AP forces peace. Now, i have 42 cities, upkeep of -400 a turn, 0 gold, 0 units, still settling cities - and im conquering Mongol by settling cities on top of them. i am also setting culture to 100% before the end of turn.

FINALLY when their empire all down to the capital flipped to me they dared exile me to netherlands. random, fun but... a city should NOT FLIP UNLESS it is 4+ squares from the capital. especially since it was my ONLY city capable of growing bigger than 3. (almost no resources, a lot of desert and hills, and few grasslands but on border of desert and under a huge jungle.)



Oh and uh, they should be more aggro when you have 0 units and 50 cities, really when i TRY to build a military they war me and bring it, but i ICS and they just figure i will suicide?

 

[Barak]

I would like to say that while many of us are finding issues or faults in the scripting of the map, I would like to applaud Rhye for the wonderful new adventures we will all be endeavoring upon.

Playing on a high likelihood map, while the world looks similar to our own, the randomness makes for a VASTLY different game. Also a very fun game!

Bravo!

 

[The Q-Meister]

I am very pleased with my Babylon game. I'm on 1500AD with a 11 turn Golden Age, thanks to the Mausoleum and I'm now solid and just about on par with the Euro civs tech wise. I've also had no issues with spawning civs trying to flip my cities...In regular RAF this would be all but impossible. My stability is solid, I have 5 decent cities, although no uber-city standing among them, and I think I'll be able to compete with the Euro civs for colonies which would be awesome because again, this would be all but unthinkable in regular RAF.

Just shows you how civs that are doomed to fall in RAF have a (possible) new life in RAND.